Language+Arts

By Allison Wojtaszek

I was doing a little exploring with Virtual Math Manipulatives for another class and I thought there had to be equally as cool things for Language Arts! I came across a website that listed a number of interactive websites all in one place that could be useful. One in particular caught my eye; Wacky Web Tales. Do you remember as a kid you would create all sorts of MadLibs with your friends? This is a virtual MadLibs! I find this particular neat because you can't peek at the next page so it is a true MadLib!

I find this to be a great activity to use in your Language Arts classroom because it incorporates so many different aspects of Language arts at once. It uses parts of speech like nouns, verbs, adverbs, punctuation, etc.; it even goes as far as to distinguish tenses and words endings. Also it has a little button for help if the student needs help with the parts of speech. This is a great way of providing instruction to the children, especially since there is very limited instruction done these days, particularly in the higher grade levels.

WordWit



WordWit is an application that can be used on an iPod, iPhone, or iPad and focuses on working with commonly misused words. Here's how it works! Start by spinning the spiral on the home screen to reveal random word pairs (you can also search of browse a list for a specific words pair). Tap the word to bring up a witty explaination and a quote that uses the word in context. By tapping the coffee cup icon you can go to the Master It section where you will answer 5 questions. if you answer them correctly they will be added to your Master's Lounge. The more you master the more levels you progress through and more words are revealed. You can also create your own word list that you find difficult or can't quite seem to get straight for quick reference when you need help. This would be a wonderful tool to use with students in a classroom. It is colorful, inviting, and engaging and presents the material in a fun way that students will enjoy. I wish I had this tool available to me when studying vocabulary in school!

Flashcards*



This is a really neat App! It's basically just virtual flashcards but you have the capability to make your own or just use someone elses. This app has an option to download flashcards that are made from others from a website called quizlet. There are flashcards made for everything! Theres cars on art, history, geography, languages, vocabulary and grammar, math, and so on. There's even cards for you to study for standardized tests! Creating your cards is a very easy process as well. You just select create my own cards, enter the title of your deck and enter the information; it's that simple! There are so many ways to use this with students and in te classroom. You can use this as a center throughout the week to ensure the students are studying, since you don't really know that they do at home. You can create cards together as a class and tests the students knowledge at the same time. You can even use it as a teaching tool instead of a study tool. The possibilities are endless!

[|TeachersCount] offers services that are tailored to the teaching profession, including up-to-date information about teaching. There are all sorts of resources for teachers and lost of support. There are book reviews as well as a variety of news about what is currectly going on in Education. There is a teacher's F&Q sections where there are answers common questions that teachers have. There is also a blog that is run by seven teacher that share their thoughts about education and the teaching life. The really cool part is there is a section where wtudents can share their stories about their favorite teachers. This is a great resource for all teachers to have in their back pocket!



Scholastic is such a good resource to use as a teacher! There are countless lesson plans and ideas for all to access that would be great to use in the classroom. I stumbled accross a great whiteboard lesson for writing in the language arts classroom. Students spin a while, sort of like a slot machine, to give them the pieces of their story! For example, I spun: write a brief biography of a thousand year old private eye who wins the lottery. This is a great way to encourage creativity! Great for quick writes!

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[|Teacher Vision] is an awesome website with so many resources for language arts teachers to use! There are so many lesson plans available to you with printable materials for you to use in class. There are resources for grades kindergarten through twelve with a variety of topics. There things for teaching writing, vocabulary, using graphic organizers and sections to connect language arts to other subjects, which is very important. I have use this website already for my fieldwork and will without a doubt use it for my Student teaching next semester!

Brianpop is a useful tool for all educators in the field! Students love to watch the videos, even if they are only a few minutes long. Students retain the information that is given to them really well using this tool. I have witnessed a student using a catchy phrase or saying that was said in one of the videos to help them on a test. It is a great way to either open up your lesson or summarize all that the students have learn during class. There is something about these videos that has these videos stuck in students' heads!

During my fieldwork, the teacher was reviewing for the students unit test. They were having trouble with the five elements of a story so she found this awesome video that even I could not get out of my head! This video is from the site flocabulary that has all kinds of hip-hop videos that are instructional but still fun and engaging. I think this is a great tool for teachers to use because students connect to video and music in a bizzare way and you can use this tool as a way to connect subject matter to students interests. And if that fails, it will be stuck in their head anyway!

 This is a website that hosts hundereds of interactive, educational web games. There's so many cool games that could be used in centers in the classroom depending on what you're working on with the students at the time. One that I like is Rocket Word Tag. This activity works on sentence analysis skills. Students are to tag words based on their function in sentences using shapes based on grammar symbols. Throughout the activities, visual and auditory feedback is provided so the students know how they are doing and there are hints, definitions of grammatical terms, and usage rules that are also incorporated into each activity.

This is another great interactive whiteboard site with various tools to use in the classroom. The use of the whiteboards can be very engaging and foster the students' learning in ways that nothing can do. Browse through and see what you can find, it's pretty cool!

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